trees make water it's the truth and in
this video I'm going to explain exactly
how trees can both create water when
they're planted and Destroy water when
they're removed so let's start with the
simple structure of a tree as a giant
net for capturing atmospheric moisture
and nutrients the combined surface area
of a trees leaves or needles branches
and Trunks is surprisingly large when
you imagine humid air or fog moving
through the tree and intercepting each
of its surfaces atmospheric humidity
condenses on every surface of the tree
as moist air rolls through the water is
settled out of the atmosphere and
collected by the tree and it's not only
moisture that's caught by the tree's net
it's also fine particles of dust pollen
spores insect bodies bird droppings and
more that are all collected by the vast
net of the tree structure so when
moisture is collected by the tree
sometimes in the form of frost when it's
cold it drips off the leaves bringing
all of these atmospheric nutrients with
it to the soil level and down into the
trees root zones this humidity harvested
by trees can actually account for a
large proportion of the total
precipitation that falls in a forest for
and then when the rain comes the whole
surface of the tree is a giant intercept
for falling rain each raindrops fall is
broken when it hits the tree and
splatters into a fine Mist where the
structure of the tree itself directs the
flowing water through it down the
branches and trunk dripping through the
interwoven network of leaves washing all
the dust and fallen and bird poop gently
down into the tree's root Zone the soil
below the tree is already spongy from
all of the leaf litter and sheltered
environment beneath the tree so the
water soaks through the soil sponge and
is drunk up by the tree's roots the tree
becomes full of water just like the
human body on average is 60% water the
body of a tree on average is 50% water
both above and below ground in the root
system so imagine a forest on top of a
hill so with 50% of every tree made up
of water you can think of a forest on a
hill as like a Lakes worth of water just
sitting there remember the total canopy
of a forest is intercepting fog humidity
and nutrient Laden dust so it's
collecting water and nutrients even when
when it's not raining then when it rains
the whole canopy breaks the speed of the
raindrops and gently drips the rain
where the tree structure directs it to
and then the spongy soil soaks it up and
The Roots drink it in and what's not
absorbed flows downhill into the creeks
and rivers below so the hilltop Forest
moderates the time it takes for water to
move through the hill it's SL flows the
duration that it takes the water to move
down through the landscape and keeps a
big storage of water at the top of the
hill in the form of the forest which
will slowly release water over the
seasons as gravity pulls it down but at
the same time that gravity is pulling
the water down the tree is also pulling
the water up and out of the leaves and
back up into the atmosphere through
evapo transpiration and evaporation and
it's not just water that's rising up and
out of the trees a forest releases many
tiny particles like pollen Leaf dust
bacteria fungus spores that float up
into the air when these tiny particles
encounter moisture floating through the
atmosphere like clouds then the forest
particles provide nuclei for raindrops
to form around so we have clouds that
have formed from evaporated water over
oceans and seas moving through the
atmosphere spere over land and then they
encounter the air above a forest which
is filled with water vapor in organic
particles and guess what happens when
they all meet it rains studies in the
Amazon showed that the forest there
actually returns 75% of its water back
into the atmosphere in amounts high
enough to form their own rain clouds but
it's not just the wet Tropics we're
talking about trees in every climate
have a partners ship with the atmosphere
trees collaborate with the atmosphere to
produce rain and snowfall and so the
clouds that you see move overhead are
not just ocean water vapor they're
Forest water as well in fact forested
mountain ranges help to Leap Frog water
from the coasts to the interior of the
continents as water vapor hops from one
mountain range to the next the rainfall
in the interior of a continent is
dependent on the forest on the coast so
when you remove trees from this cycle
through deforestation you break the
system it rains Less on Barren land
because forests aren't there to
intercept the clouds with water vapor
and raindrop nuclei and when you break
the system on the coasts it then has sad
repercussions for rainfall further
Inland it's called drought remember
trees don't only bring water vapor and
raindrop nuclei into the atmosphere they
also moderate the flow of water down
into the landscape making it more
consistent and steady because the forest
is a giant sponge of water storage so
when you remove that sponge and then the
rain falls the water rushes down off of
bare hillsides quickly below and all at
once and down below the barren Hills you
get floods in The Valleys so my friends
this sorry State of Affairs is what we
call the drought flood cycle and this is
where much of the world is today long
droughts punctuated by short intense
floods and shortly after the floods are
over the droughts start again but as
I've shown in many cases the course to
take is obvious trees make water trees
moderate the flow of water forests are
part of the circulation of atmospheric
moisture it's really pretty basic and
hence the solutions are basic as well
honestly we can undo this mess we can
just get our heads and hearts straight
so go plant some trees